Sympathy for the Devil
by Kat Morning
Summary: Leave it to Sano to look for shelter in a bar owned by a succubus.
1. Tempest

**AN:** I'm close enough to finishing this one that I'm just going to post it for laughs and giggles. Actually, the only explanation I have for this one is that the muses wanted to experiment. Tiny edits made occasionally. If you see anything, let me know. I can do stealth edits to fix it.

**Disclaimer: **Rurouni Kenshin belongs to other people, and was created by Nobuhiro Watsuki. I'm just tormenting the characters for my own fiendish amusement.

**Warnings:** Supernatural elements. Magic. (I know that bothers some people.) Violence in later chapters.

* * *

.: **Part 1** :.  
.: **Tempest** :.

Don't go into the center of town.

Everyone in Hill Hollow lived with that rule, just like they lived with the pervasive scent of cedar and the whispers on the mountain wind. The outskirts, where everyone lived, was bustling in its own disjointed, roundabout way. The stage stopped there twice a week, just long enough to disgorge mail and the occasional passenger, before rattling back down the packed and rutted earth road towards truer civilization.

The regulars largely ignored those passing through, and the not-quite regulars that warranted ignoring. Bandits still roamed the untamed lands beyond the refracted warmth that glowed through the glass windows of the few buildings that could afford it.

Hill Hollow was a bunch of oddballs and misfits, with a well-placed outlaw or two. It was a place the bandits didn't bother with often, because there wasn't much to steal, and what there was wasn't worth the trouble of finding a new supply post that asked so few questions. Or worth the trouble you'd find once you'd returned to the wastes.

Strange things followed those who left dark debts with Hill Hollow. The superstitious whispered things like "curse" and "magic" around campfires and ranch hearths, while the practical said it was bad luck and self-fulfilling prophecy. The better informed said nothing at all. Sometimes they would name it, but rarely, for a name gave power to the thing; made it real and not a child's boogeyman to be banned with the flare of a candle or the dawn of new day.

Rain slanted down that night, whipped by the wind into stinging sheets of water and lit periodically by stark lightning. The candles lighting her common room flickered with every gust that found its way through the walls or around the windows, or was let in the door by someone entering, taking refuge from the storm.

Kaoru gave the glass in her hand a final buff with her rag before setting it on the shelf and pulling a bottle from beneath the bar. The liquor inside caught the light like red-hued honey, and she held it up to watch it sparkle. Through the thick glass, distorted and cast in the honey-glow color of the liquid, she could see almost a quarter of the people in town gathered in her hall. The saloon's common room was hall-full; providing refuge to the regular customers, and lesser-seen townsfolk who had been caught out by the rain.

Most of the later weren't buying steadily, but cozy-ed up with a single mulled drink or plate, hot from Tae's masterful hand in the kitchen. Kaoru didn't mind; she basked, enjoying the warm murmur of contentment surrounding her, comfortable as cream fluff melting above rich coffee.

The door blew open, letting in the gale, and sending everyone scrambling for handkerchiefs and petticoats, and ducking away from the wash of rain that lashed anyone close to the door. Lighting crashed, illuminating the storm-tossed world without in harsh white for a blinding instant, and silhouetting the ungainly figure hulking in the doorway.

Kaoru set the bottle she had been examining beneath the counter, and she felt a tense stretch through her hands as her normally human-like fingernails thickened and elongated into delicate claws. She relaxed somewhat when she realized that the hulking beast invading her saloon was not one figure, but two. Two men staggered in, one bent over with the other's arm slung across his shoulders and icy water sloughing off their long coats and dripped from the ends of their hair. Neither had spoken, but the water puddling below the smaller of the two was tinged an alarming shade of pale red.

Kaoru tossed her polishing cloth to the bar and vaulted over the use-worn wood, displacing a few people as they scattered to get out of her way. "Tae!" Kaoru paused long enough to lean through the door leading into the kitchen. "Come handle the bar! I have to go get Dr. Genzai!"

"On a devil's night like this?" Tae asked as she appeared, wiping her hands on her apron. "My land, Kaoru, what's going on out there?" Her eyes widened as she saw Kaoru dash forward and pull the red-head's free arm over her shoulder, taking some of the load from his companion.

The injured man hissed through his teeth at the movement, and the hand now clutching at her shoulder was stained with blood. Weariness and pain laced his amethyst eyes as he raised his hand to look at her. Kaoru smiled encouragingly and leached the smallest bit of Euphoria into him to remove the edge of the pain. The man's eyes widened as Kaoru's magic brushed against him, then drifted to a lazy half-mast and relaxed against the two holding him upright.

"Woah there, Kenshin," the taller man shifted and wrapped an arm around Kenshin's to steady him. "Missy, you sure you'll be alright?"

Kaoru nodded and started forward, forcing the other two to keep up, or be dragged behind. "We have rooms upstairs. If you two can make it that far, I'll be able to go get the doctor for him."

She didn't recognize the two, and a glance at her customers confirmed no one else did either: masks and glamors firmly in place all around. Possibly unnecessary, she thought. Her brush with the one called Kenshin told her he only appeared human.

"Just the room'll be fine," the other man said, slowing slightly as they started to climb the stairs to the next level. "If it doesn't kill Kenshin right off, it's probably not going to."

Kaoru looked over the thatch of red hair lolling between them, "Should I be worried about what tried tonight?"

"It shouldn't follow us, that it should not," Kenshin rasped, answering her as he visibly fought to shake off the clinging contentment Kaoru had imposed on him. "Sano and I trapped it in a gold mine. It won't find its way out easily, that it will not."

Kenshin lapsed back into silence, but he had fought off the majority of the Euphoria and his eyes now gleamed behind hair that was sodden and dark with water, but glimmering with scarlet highlights. Kaoru gave him an odd look as she paused and used her free hand to push a door open. Four other doors in the hallway stood ajar, indicating that no one was using them, while the remaining three were shut tight. Kaoru and Sano turned sideways to edge Kenshin through the open doorway, and she ducked out from under Kenshin's arm as soon as they had him over the threshold.

Kenshin leaned against Sano as Kaoru disappeared back out the door, returning seconds later with a lantern from the hall in her hand. She slipped past the two men, set the lantern on the wash table and fed it more wick to brighten the light.

"Let's get his coat off, Sano," Kaoru said, pointing to the dark leather that was still dripping fitfully on the floor, and moving forward to help. "Brace him, and I'll get it."

With a bit of manhandling, which Kenshin bore with good grace, Sano managed to hold Kenshin up while Kaoru slid his heavy coat from his shoulders, leaving him in a damp shirt and patched leather vest over heavy cotton trousers that were marginally drier than the coat, but still dark with water. Kaoru draped the coat over a chair, stretching it out as much as possible so it would dry, and sighed as she looked them both over. Kenshin was sitting on the bed, shivering in the slight chill of the room, while Sano's dark hair was only now starting to unstick from where the rain had plastered it to his head. "Sano, there's wood and kindling enough to start a fire," she gestured to the iron potbelly that squatted on the other side of the small room. "I'll find you both something drier to wear while I call for Dr. Genzai." She started towards the door again, and Sano followed, trying to head her off.

"Missy, that's probably not a good idea." Sano followed, trying to head her off. "We don't need a doctor that much. And Kenshin isn't exactly a normal patient ..."

"My name's Kaoru," Kaoru cut him off with a dismissing wave of one hand. "And ... well, Dr. Genzai is our doctor, and this is Hill Hollow." She smiled disarmingly, a mischievous, knowing, sparkle lighting her eyes. "You must have known that when you decided to come here."

Kaoru heard what may have been a subdued chuckle from the direction of the bed as she walked past Sano and out of the room, heading for the staircase again. Normal evening sounds drifted up from the main part of the saloon: people talking, mostly adults, but a few light child voices floated above the mix. Glasses clinked as they knocked together or were dropped onto trays for transport back to the kitchen, and the out-of-key piano played a jaunty tune from the old country to stave off the continuing drum of the outside rain.

Kaoru stepped off the bottom step just as an old, stout, figure was starting up them, his black medical bag clutched in one hand, and his hat in the other. He spotted Kaoru and stuffed the hat under his arm, so he could greet her with a handclasp. "Kaoru? I hear you have a patient for me."

"Doctor!" Kaoru blinked at the appearance of the man she had set out to find, then smiled in relief. "I was just coming to get you!"

"Yes, I know. Tae sent Tsubame for me so you wouldn't need to," Genzai explained, as Kaoru took his bag and hat from him so he could shed his overcoat as they both climbed the stairs. She traded them for his still-icy coat and lead the way to the room she had left Kenshin and Sano in as the doctor continued his explanation. "She stayed at the clinic to watch the girls while I came."

Kaoru nodded her understanding and directed Genzai up the stairs to the guest rooms before continuing on her way through the swinging kitchen door. She moved briskly, in accordance with the unstated law prohibited her from lurking in the kitchen, and never "helping", on pain of being banned entirely and forced to eat hard tack, or her own cooking. Tae enforced the edict ruthlessly. However, the laundry room lay beyond the kitchen, sharing the fire-warmth from the oven and range to boil wash water for clothes and people, and there Kaoru was allowed.

A tin tub squatted in one corner, tall enough to sit in with water up to your neck, if you pulled your knees in, and curtained by a maze of lines for hanging laundry when the weather was foul, or the bather wanted privacy. A door-less cabinet stood beside it, with folded stacks of linen and spare clothes.

Kaoru pulled a few towels off the shelf, and considered her small collection of spare clothes. Most of the clothing they kept on hand wasn't large enough to fit Sano, but Kaoru's foraging finally yielded a rough boatman's shirt abandoned in the depths of the bottom shelf and a pair of long underwear. Kenshin she gaged to be roughly her size. He'd fill her clothes out a bit differently than she did, but she had trousers and shirts cut to fit and finding something for him in her room wouldn't be difficult.

Dry clothing and linen in arms, Kaoru left the washroom and stuck her head in the saloon's main room as she passed to gage the state of her customers and staff. Tae looked up, questions in her eyes, and Kaoru smiled reassuringly, feeling nothing amiss more than a subdued wariness of the strangers waiting upstairs and a general sense of curiosity. A thread of wry amusement ribboned from Tae as Kaoru ducked out again and started back up the stairs.

Genzai was puttering around his patient when she entered, and motioned for her to close the door behind herself. Kenshin was sleeping, his face pale and smudges of exhaustion darkening the skin around his eyes. The final traces of her Euphoria clung to his mind and Kaoru had to force herself to ignore siren's call of his energy that swirled with the thrilling tint of magic at the edge of her senses. The last thing the man needed was to lose energy to a sudden craving.

"I sent the other one into the next room," Genzai told her, and she was certain he'd noted how Kaoru made a point to keep him between herself and her guest. "He wasn't doing much better at staying on his feet than this one."

Kaoru made a noncommital sound that turned into a snort as unfamiliar snoring echoed from the next room, and busied herself with setting the dry clothes on foot of the bed and piling the wet ones in a basket she extracted from a corner, while making a mental note to slip in and do the same in the room Sano had appropriated later. She noticed with some relief that either Sano or the doctor had helped Kenshin undress so the only thing soaking the bed was his scarlet hair.

The sharp click of Genzai closing his medical bag caught her attention and the old doctor straightened. "I've patched him up, Kaoru, so the physical wounds should heal cleanly." Genzai said, sitting back on his heels and pulling out a handkerchief to wipe away the sweat gathering on his face as the heat from the fire spread through the room. "However, I'd like your opinion on the energy drain. Something has fed on this young man to dangerous levels."

Kaoru's eyes widened and she held up her hands. "Not my doing!"

Genzai seemed amused with her denial. "I didn't say it was."

"But if you're offering ..." a weak voice interrupted from their patient. "I'm sure it would be more enjoyable than what did try to kill me, that it would."

Genzai turned, a disarming smile on his face. "Conscious already, eh? You're a hardy young fellow."

"Sano," Kenshin rasped, alarm and something predatory and dangerous lit his eyes, which were becoming less hazy by the instant, as he scanned for his companion. "Where is he?"

"In the next room," Kaoru answered, moving into his field of vision so he focused on her and not on Genzai. He had fought off the final dregs of her magic quickly, leaving only the cloaked mist of his own tantalizing her senses. She, however, had more tricks up her sleeves than Genzai if their foundlings turned out to be dangerous. "He snores like a troll."

Breathy laughter met her comment, and Kenshin sagged back into the pillow, closing his eyes. Biting her lip, Kaoru moved to stand beside the bed and placed her hand over Kenshin's heart. One of his eyes cracked open as he felt her hand against his skin and the tips of her claws trailing over his chest. Her eyes were closed, as though she were listening to something very faint.

"I'm amazed you're managing to hold a human form," Kaoru told him bluntly, when she pulled away. "But you'll survive. Is there anything special I should ask Tae to fix?" She allowed the unspoken acknowledgment of his nature to hang in the air until Kenshin responded with a slow, wary, shake of his head.

"You should probably wake him up every hour to make sure there aren't complications," Genzai said to Kaoru. "Here, hand me those other dry things. I'm going to check on the furry beast you have next door

Kaoru nodded and gathered the things up to hand to the doctor, foisting the wet laundry basket on him as well, with a cheerful request to drop it off in the kitchen before he left. Genzai gave her a grandfatherly smile and patted her dark hair. Kaoru batted him off and let him leave as she went to check on the stove radiating a subtle warmth through the room. The iron grate swung open, and a glittering pair of reptilian eyes blinked at her from the flames. A delicate set of claws emerged, and stretched languorously before curling around a branch of the log and the salamander yawned at her.

Closing the stove, and being amused at how quickly one of the fire salamanders had moved in, Kaoru followed Dr. Genzai's path to the door. The fire lizard would warm the room, contain the blaze, and likely retrieve more wood from the kitchen if it began to cool.

Kenshin watched her movements with heavy-lidded eyes that drifted shut the moment the door latched behind her.

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**Creatures and Words of Interest**

By request, here's a glossary of sorts, in case you're not familiar with all the creatures I use. I may not be sticking fully to the textbook definition on some things. If I miss one, please let me know, and I'll do a stealth edit of the chapter. (I also tend to answer any questions posed to me. So feel free to ask.)

_Euphoria_ - Magically inducing a brief increase in the endorphin and adrenalin levels of the victim. It can be addictive.

_Succubus - _A type of demon that feeds on emotion. Succubus is the term for the female only. The male of this species is called an incubus.Succubi can affect the emotions of their victims and are also shapeshifters.

_Salamander - _A semi-sentient fire elemental that takes the form of a flame-colored lizard.


	2. Rules of Hospitality

**AN: **The mythology parade continues! Now with grail legend thrown in for kicks.

**Warnings: **Violence towards the end. More magic.

**Disclaimer: **See chapter 1.

* * *

.: **Part 2** :.  
.: **Rules of Hospitality **:.

Kaoru pulled the door closed behind her, feeling the click of the latch under her fingers and the subtle re-weaving of the wards disturbed when they had opened the door to carry Kenshin inside. She turned towards the stairs, intending to go down and reassure Tae, and her customers, that all was well. She had stepped down the top step, avoiding the squeak that lurked in the middle board, when she changed her mind and stepped back up onto the second floor landing. She continued walking down the hall to the second staircase at the end, liberating a candle from its wall-sconce before starting up the stairs.

At the top, she pushed at a section of the ceiling, dislodging it and allowing it to creak open on its hinge. She raised her arm, so the candle could precede her and cast its flickering glow across the attic room. Kaoru had this third story to herself, perched high under the rafters of the gabled roof; sharing the space only with a small stock of dry goods that didn't mind the summer heat, and a few extra pieces of furniture. She had moved these storage items in a rough semi-circle around the hinged trapdoor, leaving herself plenty of room, and Tae easy access when she needed something.

The remaining space had been arranged into living areas for Kaoru herself. Her bed stood beneath a window against one wall, neatly made with a stitched quilt covering the stuffed-straw mattress. A table several steps away held what Kaoru came for. She plucked her hairbrush from where she had placed it earlier that evening and turned to go before her nerve could fail her.

She swept back down the stairs and back into the embrace of the flickering candlelight of the second floor hallway. She paused at Sano's door, and knocked quietly; loud enough he would hear her if he were awake, but soft enough not to wake anyone trying to sleep. Hearing nothing, Kaoru carefully unlatched the door and pushed it open enough to check on her guest. The oiled hinges swung without squeaking, and revealed Sano's lanky form sprawled carelessly over the bed, with the blanket slung perilously low over his hips, and a foot sticking out.

His coat was stretched over a chair to dry, and his other clothing had disappeared, and was probably already downstairs. A pile of dry clothes lay crumpled in a pile near the foot of the bed. Kaoru allowed a light breath of magic to settle over Sano before backing away from the door. He would sleep, held in his dreams by the thread of Compulsion she held over him until morning came, or a threat of any kind arrived in the night.

She heard his breathing deepen further as she pulled the door close. Sano, she noted, didn't fight the magic like Kenshin did. He just relaxed and slept. Kaoru heard the door latch and turned away just as Tae emerged from down the stairs, balancing one of the smaller serving trays in one hand, and holding her blue-edged wool skirts up with the other. Kaoru wedged the brush handle in her sash and hurried forward to help.

"Tae? Who's ..."

"Minding the folk downstairs? They're minding themselves." Kaoru cast a nervous glance around Tae, and looked like she was listening for shattering glass or drunken singing. "No one wants to get tossed out tonight, dear, it's too wet. They'll behave for a few moments unsupervised." Tae pushed one steaming mug into her hands. "And that poor man you dragged up here looked _blue_."

"That 'poor man' is currently cocooned in one of Tsubame's quilts and has a salamander napping in the fire stove," Kaoru said, unconsciously planting her feet as Tae attempted to herd her toward Kenshin's door. "He's warm."

"He'll warm up faster if you get something warm into him," Tae said, cheerful and unrelenting, and Kaoru was forced to throw out her free hand to brace against the doorframe from a light shove. Scraping claws against the wood, Kaoru ducked aside with a swish of saffron fabric and white lace and swept her free hand toward the door, indicating that Tae was welcome to go in if _she _wanted to.

Tae's mouth quirked upwards in a smile as she raised one dark brow and handed Kaoru the second mug she was carrying. Kaoru looked mutinous. "Just keep in mind he probably can't spare a lot of energy tonight, Kaoru." Kaoru flushed and Tae's chiming laughter only darkened her mood, and a tiny crackle of wild magic escaped to dance around her, tugging at the tips of her hair. Tae took it in stride and the stalemate ended with Kaoru giving a resigned sigh.

"You're set on this, aren't you." It wasn't much a question, and Kaoru's bare shoulders had lost some of their tense set.

"He's one man, silly girl, and he's your guest," Tae scolded, though not unkindly. "Rules of Hospitality."

Kaoru closed her eyes for the space of a breath, and muttered something, before nodding. She turned and allowed Tae to reach past her to work the handle an unlatch the door, then nudged it fully open with her foot. She heard Tae retreat and light footsteps on the stairs before kicking the door shut once more.

Kenshin was watching her as she approached the bed. Dark shadows smudged the skin beneath his eyes, but the heat in the room had brought a trace of color back into his face, and he looked alert. Sending out a questioning thread of magic, Kaoru found herself rebuffed by his natural defenses. It was a weak counterattack, and one she could have bullied her way through without much effort. His emotions were not fully under wraps either, and whispered around her senses with their dangerous thrill of wild magic, but he was recovering, and rapidly.

"Back so soon?"

She glared at him and one crimson eyebrow rose as she shoved a steaming cup into his hands. "I forgot about Tae's tendency to feed things. You are suppose to be resting."

He spread his long-fingered hand across the blanket, and she could see calluses catching at the stitches. "I am resting. I have not moved from where you and the doctor put me, that I have not."

"You're conscious," she pointed out. "And managing to hold a human appearance. Again, I'm not sure _how_ you're managing it, when I'm sure that a passing sylph could have knocked you over when Sano dragged you in here."

A breathy laugh met her prickly confusion and Kenshin dropped his head, allowing his flame-bright hair to shadow his eyes. "I am merely a fast healer, Miss Kaoru, that I am."

She looked unconvinced, but didn't press for answers. Instead, she took a step away from the bed and turned to go. Fingers closed lightly around Kaoru's wrist and she paused, looked back. "Please... stay. I don't remember much of Sano dragging me here. Where are we? Bloodwood was the closest town, but ... I do not remember you from the times we have been there."

"You are really lost if you think you're in Bloodwood," Kaoru snorted. "But your werewolf friend must have dragged you clear around the lake to get you here if you were that far away ..."

Kenshin's surprised "oro?!" was met with a smile from his hostess and a light laugh. "Welcome to Hill Hollow, Mr ..." she trailed off meaningfully.

"Himura Kenshin," he answered. "And Sanosuke is not a were_wolf_, Miss Kaoru. His beast is a Rhodesian ridgeback. A dog."

"I'll keep that in mind if the sheriff decides to check in on us," Kaoru said, then shrugged and moved so she could sit on the end of the bed alongside Kenshin's ankles. "It's just as well, since I doubt he'd take kindly to another wolf in town that isn't pack."

Kenshin regarded her speculatively before asking, "Are you pack, Miss Kaoru?"

She grinned mischievously and produced one of his silver knives from somewhere in her ruffled skirt and handed it to him. "You know I'm not, or you're not much of a bounty hunter."

"You're a succubus," he said, voice quiet and eyes guarded. The knife he set beside him on the bed. Kaoru allowed a smile to play at the edges of her lips as his emotions curled away from her instinctive reading of them and coiled behind strengthening shields. Her power tested the edges of his shields, which were still weak from the energy drain.

"Have you been trying to pin that down since I left?" Kaoru raised a questioning eyebrow as she answered, suspecting he knew how much she could read.

"It was not a matter of pinning it down, that it was not," Kenshin said, and she could see his guard relax a bit at her easy acceptance of his identification. "You attempted to use succubi Euphoria on me earlier. I have only wanted to know if you regarded us as potential meals."

"With the mess you showed up in?" Kaoru snorted. "Don't flatter yourself." She pushed herself to her feet and pulled the brush from her sash, laid it beside his hand in easy reach and grinned. "Rules of Hospitality, Mr. Himura. You and your friend are welcome here for as long as the storm lasts. I'll be back in an hour to check on you."

Kenshin's fingers curled around the handle of the brush, and he watched her walk towards the door, a look of surprised curiosity on his face. When she opened the door, tinny piano music filled the air, along with several raised voices and an animalistic snarl that sounded like someone downstairs was spoiling for a fight.

"Something about Hill Hollow, just in case you decide to spend some time here:" Kaoru spoke over her shoulder, her voice carrying a mixture of exasperation and amusement while she reached up to sweep a stray bit of her dark hair away from her face, "things are never quiet for long."

--------------

The main room quieted somewhat when Kaoru entered, but it was a tense quiet. Tae spotted her from where she stood at the main bar; holding a cloth between her hands, and twisting it into a misshapen knot. The other woman darted for the kitchen the moment Kaoru came close enough to take her place behind the counter. Kaoru paused, watching the kitchen doorway and wondering what had gone wrong with Tae. The usually cheerful, calm, and annoying helpful woman roiled with barely-controlled panic.

Kaoru could name the two things that panicked Tae this much, and didn't think either of them stupid enough to enter the saloon – not when the local succubus was in residence, anyway. Problems dragged into her saloon were soon _wet _and _cold _problems when she tossed them out on their nether appendages.

Thunder cracked the skies, rattling the window glass in its panes, and covering her footsteps as Kaoru walked a few steps further into the room. Over half of the room had emptied while she'd been settling in her new guests, but most of the customers that remained had seen her go up the stairs. Those shifted their attention to the stairs the moment Tae fled.

One didn't. He'd positioned himself with his back to the stair, where he could watch the bar and the door. The other beings gave him a wide berth, and not just because of the brackish water forming its own pond from the runoff of his filthy coat. Kaoru wrinkled her nose in distaste, knowing she'd be burning the rags used to mop the mess up, and crossed the room.

In the silence following the thunder, her heeled boots clacked against the wood floor, and she rested one hand against her hip. "Hiruma Kihei," Kaoru said, a dangerous light creeping into her eyes, as the faintest tracings of shadowy wings crept into being behind her. "What are you doing here?"

He jerked when she spoke, and she saw the flush creep up the skin at his neck as he twisted to look behind him.

"Ah, Miss Kaoru!" he greeted. "I'd wondered why Tae abandoned her post and fled for the kitchen."

"If I were Tae, I'd want to surround myself with knives and cast iron skillets in your presence too." Kaoru unsheathed her claws so that ten points of glittering bone-white sharpness rested against the yellow satin of her dress. "Again, why are you in my saloon?" 'How soon are you leaving?' hung, unspoken, in the silence.

"Now, Kaoru, you wouldn't begrudge hospitality on a night like this, would you?" he chided, a leer lurking in his eyes. "Truth is, the storm's got the lake so whipped up it would be suicide to stay there, and you're the closest building that's public and open to us normal humans."

"Lucky me." Kaoru tapped her nails against her hip for a moment before shrugging. Her claws didn't retract, and a light rusty tang of magic continued to hang in the air, but all trace of wings vanished from sight. "Don't cause trouble, and stay away from Tae. So long as you hold to that, you can stay."

Kaoru sashayed back to the bar, and ducked underneath it to pull out the reed-lined tub of used glasses. The customers were sparse; the earlier crowd having thinned to only Mr. Lohengrin, the were-swan that owned the general store, and his youngest hatchling sitting near the tall fireplace, a few still-waterlogged imps, and a dryad that was idly making patterns on the bar's wood with a drop of water.

The storm's winds no longer threatened to tear the shingles off, and the quietness heightened the scratching of wood against wood and the slithering, crackling hiss of salamander feet as the heat-loving lizards explored the fireplace logs.

'We seem to be attracting all sorts of wandering strays tonight,' Kaoru mused, hefting the tub into her arms and carrying it towards the kitchen. She kept part of her attention on Kihei the entire time, but he seemed content to watch the salamanders and drink from the tall stein in front of him. She felt nothing beyond the regular oily combination of smugness and scheming in his emotions, which was never pleasant but not dangerous.

Before she reached the doorway, Kaoru intentionally clinked the glasses together and called out to Tae, not wanting to dodge projectiles or try to fix another gouge in the wall. Tae didn't answer, and Kaoru couldn't see her when she entered the kitchen. Hoping that just meant the she had gone out to find tranquility in the rain, Kaoru dropped her tub of glasses beside the wash basin, and moved to the door.

A flash of tearing light revealed the garden and outbuildings, but no slim dark forms against the night. Kaoru turned and spotted a rolling pin that hung perilously close to falling off the counter. Tae kept the room in excruciating order. Kaoru had never known her to leave anything out. Kaoru opened her mind to all the emotional currents that flowed in unseen pathways around her, she couldn't find the familiarity of the other woman anywhere close. However, she noticed a dark sense of victory layered beneath scheming and knew who it had to be. Cursing herself as seven kinds a fool, Kaoru dashed back through the doorway and into the main room.

"What have you done?" Kaoru demanded, descending on the hapless little man like a Valkyrie entering the field of battle. All pretenses of humanity fell away, and a whiff of mottled fluff swirled past, cast from her solidified wings. Her mouth ached with the sudden appearance of fangs, and her hearing sharpened as her ears took on their normal shape.

Kihei paled badly, and his hand trembled where it clung to his glass until he managed to control himself. "I've been sitting here, having a peaceful drink."

Large hands suddenly wrapped around the pinions of her wings, and yanked her back into a broad chest. Pain shuddered through her wings as the brute's attack ripped out feathers, and she saw one of the largest drift past. Kaoru gritted her teeth against screaming or shuddering in revulsion as thick arms moved to pinion her arms to her sides. The owner of those arms, however, bellowed as her elongated claws eviscerated his arm, and his grip loosened. Kaoru spun and reached up, intent on tearing his face off.

The man, Kihei's brutish brother, towered above her, scraggly beard bristling with fury, and his piggish eyes blazed with hatred. Kaoru returned the sentiment and slashed him an instant before his fist connected and sent her hurtling against the bar in a tangle. She felt one wing give under the impact and searing pain followed. Kaoru forced herself out of the fetal position she'd curled into, and used a bar stool to pull herself upright. One wing hung strangely, and she cringed. It was dislocated, at best.

Gohei was advancing on her again, and she could see the other customers getting up to move to stop him. A flicker in his Gohei's hand sent her blood running cold. Silver. She threw out a hand to the would-be rescuers and two orders to stop rang out – one from her, and the other from Kihei.

Kaoru circled until she was standing with the fireplace at her back, and between Gohei and the other patrons. Even the dryad had braved the presence of fire, and was helping the swan-were calm his son.

Kihei bent and picked Kaoru's discarded wing-feather, examining the blood that tipped the very end of it. "Now, Miss Kaoru. I believe you had a question for me?"

* * *

**Creatures of Interest**

_Dryad:_ A type of fae nature spirit whose life is bound to a tree. They are quite shy, usually. A dryad will live either within a tree, or close to it. They have influence over living trees, and limited influence over items made of wood from their type of tree.

_Imp:_ A minor demon that likes shadows, and prefers the form of either a living shadow, a weasel, or a spider. Like most demons, they are shape shifters, though not as proficient as higher types of demons. Imps are mischievous and lovers of chaos, and like to impersonate creatures that are more powerful than they are.

_Werekin:_ A being with limited shape shifting ability that can take on the appearance of their beast, or inner creature. Werewolves are the most infamous, but the species isn't restricted to just wolves. In this chapter, we see a wereswan, find that Sano is a weredog, and hear mention of a werewolf. Werekin retain their senses and instincts in human form, and their rationality and intelligence in animal form.


	3. What New Devilry

**AN: **All three chapters are newly beta'ed, thanks to Emerald Dragon! LadyChi and Enigma have also been filling in and offering feedback. Or just "it's good. Stop fussing with it." I have like nothing to say this chapter except ... when the heck did this story get so long? And holy flaming shnikies, the feedback for last chapter has me utterly staggered! Especially for a story that I wasn't planning to post because it was fun, but not something I thought anyone would be all that interested in! (and ... squee, several of my very favorite authors seem to like it, and that's really the highest praise of all!) Now, that I've had my fangirl moment, I'll just say ... Wow. Thank you. I am truly honored.

**Disclaimer: **To part 1 you must journey, if the disclaimer you would find.

**Warnings:** Violence. Language. Bit of fanservice too.

* * *

.: **Part 3** :.  
.: **What New Devilry** :.

A crash jolted Kenshin out of the doze he'd lapsed into. Voices rose from the common room below, snarling at one another, and he picked out one as belonging to Kaoru. Tossing aside the blanket, Kenshin crossed the room and pulled the door open, leaving splintery gouges where the tips of his claws scored the frame.

Sanosuke lurched out of the next room, eyes wide and more than a trace of fang showing between his lips. He pulled up short as he noticed Kenshin standing in the hall as well. Another round of arguing erupted below and Kenshin started forward to see if he could see what was going on from the stairs.

"Kenshin!" Sano hissed, reaching out to catch the red-head's bare shoulder. "One of us had better find pants before we storm down there and pick a fight." Kenshin twisted and saw Sano's other hand occupied with holding up the blanket he'd wrapped around his waist. "Though, Missy's a succubus, and she might be okay with you showing up like that. Where the hell are our clothes?"

Kenshin's cheeks flared and he vanished back into his room. Sano rolled his eyes and followed his partner. By the time he'd entered the room, Kenshin had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, and a trace of red still staining his face. He plucked a pile of wrinkled cotton off the bed and tossed it over his shoulder at Sano. "Miss Kaoru left you clothes."

Sano caught the bundle and dropped half of it, leaving the shirt dangling from . "And? She didn't leave you any?"

"I think she forgot, that she did," Kenshin sighed, casting a look at the brush that lay on the floor beside the bed. He moved over to where his coat hung over the chair's back and swung it over his shoulders, grimacing as the sodden canvas settled over his skin. Kenshin fastened the buttons as he turned back around and found Sano pulling the dry shirt over his head.

"We look like a pair of refugees," Sano grumbled as he tugged everything into place and made sure it was buttoned.

"Sano, can you hear what's happening?" Kenshin asked, his attention riveted on the muffled sounds drifting up to them.

Sanosuke quieted and breathed deeply to see what he could tell from scent. "Yeah, but all I can tell is that Missy's gotten herself in trouble somehow. There's too many people down there to tell specifics. Normally, I'd say the doppleganger I can smell down there, but around here ... Who's Tae? Missy's real upset, and it sounds like it's about her."

"I believe that's the one Miss Kaoru said likes to feed things," Kenshin answered, turning to consider the window and the rain lashing against the pane. "She was here earlier."

"The selkie?" Sano whistled, picking the scent out of the only other female that had been in the room recently. "Damn. How does a succubus get mixed up with a selkie?"

"I think you'll have to ask Miss Kaoru that, Sano. She ..." Kenshin trailed off and stilled, then began slipping towards the outer wall with silent steps. "Someone's coming."

Light steps sounded on wood, padding down the hall outside the room's door. The two bounty hunters stood tense and silent, and Kenshin expended enough energy to melt into the shadows, tilting his head so his hair would fall over the glowing gold that always remained visible in his eyes. Sano crept forward and flattened himself against the wall beside the door, where it would swing forward to cover him. The move kept both hidden, and gave Kenshin time to leap out of the shadows at an intruder while Sano blocked their escape through the door.

The footsteps hesitated for a moment before continuing, and finally disappeared completely on the far side of the hall. Sano let out the breath he'd been holding while Kenshin stepped back into easy view and walked over to the room's single window.

He unlatched the pane and pushed, admitting a gust of damp wind. Shielding his eyes from the onslaught, Kenshin leaned out and looked along the wall in both directions and down to the ground. He saw well in the dark, but saw nothing but a quiet street and a few outbuildings for storage of goods and beasts peeking their roofs over an enclosing wall. His eyes brightened in speculation as he saw a sturdy-looking drainpipe and he reached out to test it with a firm tug. Something told him clawing handholds into the outer wall wouldn't be taken well by his hosts, but the pipe remained sturdy.

"Why is the direct route for you out the window, over the roof, down the drain pipe, and through an alley?" Sano demanded, following as Kenshin shifted to get a better grip on the pipe. "Look, Kenshin, are you up to this? Those things messed you up pretty bad even before you decided to knock a hillside down on them ... and the house."

"Is that why you dragged us here?" Kenshin sounded amused, and pulled himself up to where he was leaning most of the way out, anchored to the outer wall by the drain pipe, and Sano rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, it's gone. It was right _under _the landslide _you _caused. I barely got _us_ away from it, and you were out cold. Then it started raining ..." Sano ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up wildly in all directions. "Anyway, you're standing, which is a damn miracle. I can go down there alone and see who's stupid enough to stir up trouble on a night like this."

Kenshin shook his head. "Miss Kaoru is our host, but she didn't have to take us in." Kenshin looked over his shoulder, eyes serious with the conviction shuttered behind them. "And now someone is missing. One of us needs to cause a distraction while the other finds Miss Tae."

Sano shook his head and grabbed Kenshin by the shoulders, pulling him back into the room, and taking his place on the lip of the window. "Raining or not, I'm better at tracking than you. Whoever's got this Tae woman couldn't have gone too far. I'll find her and bring her back. Give me a couple of minutes, then you can go play hero."

Kenshin nodded and hid a smile when he caught Sano muttering under his breath about devils with hero complexes. Fur edged into view around Sano's form as he swung out and disappeared from sight. Kenshin counted silently, marking time until several minutes had passed before leaning back out the window. Sano was gone, hunting the wayward selkie, and Kenshin caught another round of snarling that erupted downstairs at the same time the footsteps reappeared in the hall.

The knob of his door shook and turned, and Kenshin dove out the window before it could open, grabbing the drain pipe in one hand and digging the other hand's claws in the wood to halt his momentum. He cursed as the light footfalls moved to the window, which was still open and allowing rain and wind to drench the small room. The brief flash of magic he'd used to cloak himself in shadows earlier had drained more of his energy than he wanted to admit; enough that disappearing the same way now was out of the question.

Kenshin took an instant to gage the difference between the second story window he was clinging outside of and the muddy ground below, and shook his head. He'd be seen when the owner of those approaching footsteps looked down to see who'd climbed out the window. He looked up and found the edge of the roof almost within reach, and swung himself carefully and silently up. Kenshin immediately found other claw-marks scored into the roof below his hands where he crouched; marks that were smaller than his own, and made by Kaoru's hands he reasoned as he leaned back over the edge of the roof. A head of spiky hair poked out of the window and looked first one way, then the other. The tense set of the shoulders Kenshin could see told him the man was watchful, and he handled himself with a professionalism that had Kenshin withdrawing from sight.

He was high up, and only another being with wings would have much chance of spotting him if he was careful. Moving as silently as he could, Kenshin ghosted over the rain-slickened shingles, and slid over to the opposite side of the building. Below him lay a courtyard, churned with the passage of horses and feet, and a glow of light spilling a stretched arch said there was a way into the first floor from there. Kenshin chose a darker place close by, took a breath of water-logged air and jumped, dropping to the ground and flexing with the impact when he landed.

He kept his balance for a breath before collapsing to his knees; his hands stopping him from sprawling full length in the muck. Mud slurped at his skin and oozed over his hands and up his arms. Nails lengthened and sharpened, sliding from pale skin to bite into the ground as he felt the spell holding his appearance tear.

Shreds of heavy canvas fell around him, and the puddles collected in the pitted ground stilled as the rain ceased to fall in the shelter of leathery wings. Kenshin levered himself up so he was kneeling instead of crouching and watched the falling rain wash trails in the mud clinging to his hands and claws. The rain ran down his shoulders and chest as Kenshin pulled the shredded remains of his coat away and sighed.

He made a half-hearted attempt to rebuild the glamour concealing his most distinctive features, but found he was pulling on an empty well. There was no magic to draw on. He'd used far too much fighting alongside Sano, an then retaining a human appearance. Miss Kaoru and the doctor had wondered on that earlier, especially since he was so clearly not hiding some of the physical manifestations of his magical nature. Kenshin hadn't given them an answer because, no matter how much he tried, his hair and eyes stubbornly refused to be hidden or shifted to more earthly colors.

Magic ran too thickly in his blood and the enchantment that hid the rest was shattered, probably until dawn. Now his eyes glowed with the reflection of hellfire, and the lightning revealed a silhouette of leathery wings and curved horns. Kenshin covered his eyes with one hand and felt the tips of his claws prick the corner of his eyes before he rubbed too hard. He was going to cause a panic the moment he walked into a room looking like this.

A shiver shuddered through Kenshin as he registered the cold wind and rain running down his bare skin, and he stretching his wings so the thin leather sheltered him from most of the falling rain. In the near distance, a dim light shone through thickly glassed windows and a doorway with a haphazard ribbon of flat stones forming a path across the yard. The door stood open, and the muddy grass around the stones had been churned up recently. So recently that the puddles forming in the footprints were only half full, and they were leading _away _from the door. That detail gave him better odds that the room beyond that inviting door would be empty. Even more promising was the rope laundry line that ran from a tall pole to a spike in the side of the building. The laundry room. This was likely where Miss Kaoru had moved his clothes and, even if they were still wet from the earlier soaking, they'd be better than the shredded rags now lying in the mud.

Kenshin folded his arms across his chest and started his squelching trek for the laundry room. Once he stepped inside, heat enveloped him, and he found it radiated from the stones forming the far wall. The faint smoky scent of hot ash permeated the air, thrown from the hidden fire that warmed the room.

A linen closet standing next to a drained tin tub looked promising, and Kenshin rifled through it quickly, but found nothing useful, unless he wanted to wear a toga and belt it with one of the laundry lines. The laundry lines were unfortunately bare, and Kenshin found himself praying that the baskets with the clothes Miss Kaoru had stolen from him weren't sitting in the common room.

Then he spotted the baskets tucked in the shadows beside the outer door. He had walked right by it in his search. Wet, cold, and clammy even in the heated air, Kenshin squeezed the water out of his hair as he backtracked and dropped to one knee beside the basket. His clothes were at the bottom, and Kenshin liberated the trousers, leaving the shirt and vest behind, since neither were cut to accommodate wings.

Kenshin cringed at the feel of the still-damp canvas sliding against his skin as he pulled the trousers on and grabbed his belt out of the basket. Threading and buckling the belt as he went, Kenshin moved closer to the lit doorway leading to the common room.

-----------------

Kaoru forced herself to think past the pain searing from her wing, by concentrating on the lesser pain as her claws bit into her palms, and the slippery feel of blood dripping down her hands. She shouldn't have trusted him, and she shouldn't have allowed Tae out of her sight. She knew that with crushing certainty. "She's not property. I won't let you do this."

Kihei's self-satisfied smirk answered her. "_I _haven't done anything, Miss Kaoru, except save you from my brother's attentions. Everyone here can witness to that."

"We'll witness that your brother attacked Miss Kamiya!" Mr. Lohengrin said, coming up behind her. Kaoru extended her uninjured wing, blocking the swan-were from moving closer. He started to duck past her and staggered as a lash of succubi-induced vertigo hit him.

"Albion, could you please not make yourself a second hostage?" Kaoru snapped, glancing towards where the being was clutching at the back of a chair. Turning back, the firelight sputtered as she focused on the two humans before her. "Where is Tae?"

"Already out of your reach." Puffs of hot breath hissed over her skin, along with curls of misty smoke. Edged steel slid through the satin of her dress to rest against her back. Kaoru stilled, a litany of curses running through her mind as professional calm and an unmistakably emotionless chill slithered against her mind. "What made you think the human brute was the thing brought to deal with you?"

Kaoru lashed out, channeling her own fear into magic, and forging a weapon that lanced into the man's mind and ... slid through it like light through water. Animate. He was an Animate! Kaoru wondered where in hell the Hirumas had dug up (probably _literally_) an Animate, and almost had to admire the forethought. Her magic would have no effect. She fed on emotions. She could manipulate them as well, but Animates weren't often wired for emotions

Sudden pain exploded through her as the Animate behind her slammed a hand into the joint of her dislocated wing, and popped the joint back into place with a sickening crack. Kaoru collapsed and curled into a defensive ball, with her arms wrapped around her waist. Flashes of white and color blurred her vision, and her breathing grew ragged as injured tears ran down her face in cold trails as she registered a hand closing over the long bones of her uninjured wing, and tightening in warning. He'd none-too-gently fixed her dislocated wing, but if she moved wrong, the hand would tighten and twist, snapping the hollow bones and crippling her further. Kaoru chanced looking over her shoulder to see her captor and the hint of eyes glinted from the shadowed recesses of a devilish mask. She'd met enough bounty hunters to believe the implicit threat of his steady hands and razored steel.

A terrified pair of shouts sounded from behind, and Kaoru uncurled enough to turn her head and see the imps marching the dryad and the Lohengrin child past. The boy clung to her brown skirt, as every chair or table carved from chestnut was quivering with the force of the dryad's fury until one the fiends produced a chain of iron and looped it around her wrists. She hissed as the links raised blisters where they touched her skin, but allowed herself to be pushed through the doorway into the kitchen.

Gohei clumped past a moment later, one hand fisted in Albion Lohengrin's white hair, exposing his throat to the silver blade as his shoved him out of the room. That cleared the room of everyone but Kihei, the bounty hunter, and Kaoru herself.

She felt a cold lump settle into the depths of her stomach and something akin to helplessness steal over her. Kihei had come with backup and banes: iron for the fae, silver for werekin, and she felt the enchantment folded into the bounty hunter's steel burning against her skin.

A chair creaked as Kihei rose and picked his hat up off the table. He tilted his head, considering, and an unpleasant smile twisted his mouth. "And finally, I've convinced you to be reasonable."

Kaoru glared at him and braced her hands against the floor. "Let me up," she ordered without looking over her shoulder at the animate kneeling behind her. His grip loosened, then retracted completely, and he leaned back to give her a sliver of free movement. Kaoru shifted her weight, and struck. She dropped her weight to her uninjured side, rolling with the movement, and lancing out with one boot to catch the Animate in the knee. He was fast; twisting to avoid the worst of the blow, before springing forward to pin Kaoru to the floor. The heartbeat between his fall and his lunge was enough for what Kaoru needed.

The pain in her wing spiked as she used it to sweep the abandoned bottles and glasses of liquor from the bar, propelling several into the fireplace across the room, causing it to flare up in an unholy whoosh. The blaze bathed the room in light, forcing the men to blink away the dazzle as she leapt for the doorway to the kitchen.

An obstacle stepped into her path, half hidden in shadows so she couldn't see it until she slammed into it. Firm, but yielding as he reeled back to catch his balance, and grunted as her headlong rush knocked the wind out of his chest. Panic whited out the edges of Kaoru's mind and she lashed out at this new threat.

"Miss Kaoru, please don't do that," her victim groaned, shaking off the lingering effects of her attack.

His hair was loose, the fall of scarlet hair heightening his pale skin as he interposed himself between her and the other man. Kaoru found herself facing shoulders cloaked in the supple leather of mantled wings and the backs of a pair of curved horns with tips that gleamed wickedly in the firelight. "Kenshin?"

"Miss Kaoru doesn't seem to want you here, that she does not."

* * *

**Creatures of Interest**

_Animate _- a category of supernatural beings that were previously inanimate objects, but have been reanimated by magic. Homunculi, vampires, doppleganger, and golems belong to this group.

_Selkie_ - A type of shape-shifting fae that can take the form of a seal. Females can shed their skin and come on land appearing human. Male selkie can cause storms. If a man finds the skin and hides it, he can force the selkie into becoming his wife. She won't be able to return to the water without her skin. Typically, selkies are found in the ocean or sea, where you'd find regular seals. However, there are fresh water seals, and therefore, there are fresh water selkies too.


	4. Devil Dog

.:** Part 4** :.  
.: **Devil Dog** :.

**Warnings:** Language, violence, supernatural elements, and blatantly taking lots of cultures and hitting puree. As always.

**Disclaimer:** It's in chapter one.

* * *

Sano's feet slid as he landed in the mud until catching on a stable rock. He looked back and could see part of Kenshin's shadow cast by the flickering light in the room, keeping watch. Rain covered the trails and layers of scents around him, washing them out until he could barely tell one from another with his mostly human senses. With a deep breath, Sano coaxed the spectral dog of his soul beast forward. His body shifted, still holding its human shape, but ghostly fur rippled against his skin. His senses sharpened so he could see through the darkness more clearly, and the faded scents around him separated into trails he could follow. 

A fanged grin flashed in the lightning that crackled through the sky as familiar instincts awakened inside him, and his attention narrowed to a hunting focus. The scents stretched in a path from the saloon's main building to a carriage house, with a door that swung in the occasional gusts of wind that whipped through the stormy night. A light caught inside, illuminating one window, and Sano caught the sound of several angry voices snarling, followed by a sharp crack of splintering wood that trailed into a frightened whimper.

Sano crossed the yard swiftly, zeroing in on the sounds and light and letting werekin instinct blend deeper with his human mind. He felt his body reacting to the loosed magic by elongating and shifting, allowing fur to be matted down by the rainy drizzle, and feral eyes to shine in the intermittent light.

As he approached to building's door, a pair of dark figures jerked in surprise as Sano stalked past and grasping taloned hands reached for his sodden clothing to hold him back. A nearly-inaudible growl rumbled from Sano as his fist connected with one, the impact throwing it against a wall. A snap-kick tossed the second one into the rain and mud, where it skidded several feet before laying still, the continuing rain soaking its rough clothing. They didn't carry the faint tang of brimstone Kenshin and his master carried with them, but the living shadow scent of a minor demon; little trouble for a werekin whose beast was bred to hunt lions.

Sanosuke's claws gouged curling strips of wood from the door as he wrenched it open, his nose wrinkling as the coppery tang of spilled blood washed over him from the inside air escaping past him. The entrance startled the remaining occupants of the room, causing the thuggish human to stumble backwards, foot catching on a bucket as scrambled away from the snarling werekin. Sano snorted and crossed his arms, waiting for the other man to regain his balance, with a tension in the raised fur along his neck and alertness thrumming through his frame.

"Damn beasts," Gohei snarled, hand latching onto the top of a stall door to steady his balance. Sano's expression darkened and he started forward menacingly. "What do you want, anyway?"

"Name's Sagara Sanosuke," he grinned, fangs bared to catch the light of the lanterns squatting in the windows. The growling tones of his beast tainted his voice as Sanosuke pointed at the dark-haired selkie standing furious guard over the bloodied form of a wereswan and an unconscious dryad. "And I don't see or smell a pelt in here, so I don't think she belongs to you."

"What business is it of yours?" Gohei demanded belligerently, pushing away from the empty stall and closer to one tack-covered wall.

"None at all," Sano said easily, moving closer so he was fully in the wan light of the barn. "Except that the girl who runs this place has been downright nice to my partner and I when we needed someplace to go, and letting you threaten her other customers and make off with one of her friends seems like a bad way to repay that hospitality. And the way I see it, you've done enough that Missy could _hire_ my partner and me to go after you."

"That so? Well, we wouldn't be here if she wasn't a thief as well as a whore!"

A glob of something dark sailed through the air and smacked into the side of Gohei's head, clinging to his thinning hair, and oozing down the side of his face for a moment before falling wetly to his shoulder. He bellowed as the smell hit his nose, and Sano followed the path of the projectile back to see Tae rubbing her hand with a fistful of clean straw. Gohei started for her, but pulled up as Sano stepped in his path.

"Don't drag Kaoru into this, you side-winding thug!" Tae snapped. "She didn't rescue me, I rescued myself. She didn't do anything but bruise your ego and tell me where your brother was hiding my seal skin; it was my choice to leave!"

"You wouldn't of had the guts to if that meddling bitch hadn't shown up!"

Tae's hand found an abandoned shovel, and closed around the handle, tightening as she started towards the large man, bristling with defensive fury.

"Whoa there," Sano snagged her one-handed, his claws snagging on the ruffled collar of her dress as he pulled her back out of the way. "Leave the rough stuff to me, eh?" Sanosuke tossed her back as he lunged forward, swinging his fist into Gohei's stomach, doubling the larger man over before bringing an elbow down on his back and sending him sprawling across the barn floor.

Gohei spat and wiped bloody spittle flecked with dirt and straw from his mouth as he staggered back to his feet. "Damn wolves. Won't fight anyone without your claws and magic!"

Sano stepped forward a low growl vibrating the air around them, stilled, and then shrugged. The phantom fur melted away, falling away and dissipating in wisps of tawny shadow before it touched the ground. "No magic," he grinned, cracking the knuckles of his fist. "And I'm not a wolf. I'm a dog."

Sano rushed at Gohei with an unholy grin twisting his mouth, diving under the larger man's grappling hands and turning to unbalance him with a foot planted in his back. Gohei caught himself, one hand preventing a full sprawl on the straw-dusted stone, while the other tucked close to his waist. Tae scurried out of his path, keeping as much distance as possible between them.

Gohei snorted and leered at her as he shifted his weight and threw himself to the left as Sano's fist crashed into the floor he'd just been crouched over. Gohei rolled right again, a flash of silver appearing in his hand before Sano recovered.

Tae screamed, and Sano jerked out of the way, but not before the blade in Gohei's hand left a trailing gash down his leg that blistered beneath the quickly-bloody cotton, and the knife lodged against the bone of his knee. Sanosuke's breathing went ragged as he reached down and wrapped one hand around the handle of the silver blade jutting out of his leg, ignoring the new blisters that appeared where the leather-wrapping didn't cover. Gohei grinned and pushed himself to his feet, before walking close enough he could loom over the wounded werekin. Sanosuke stayed still until the other was in striking distance before jerking the knife out of his leg and catching Gohei across the face, splattering fresh blood across the blade in his fist.

Gohei bellowed and staggered back, clutching at his face as blood streamed into his beard. Metal clattered across stone and thudded against wood as Sano threw the bloody blade out of reach, and levered himself upright.

Dense smoke erupted between the two combatants, stinging eyes, and throwing everyone into a coughing fit as they breathed it in. "The hell's going on?" Sano demanded, clinging to a wall in order to stay standing.

"You're not helping if you catch me in it too, you good-for-nothing sneak-thief!" Gohei bellowed, flailing at the dissipating smoke.

"I was aiming for both of you, Mr. Hiruma," a voice said from the shadows, followed by a tiny man with wildly spiky hair. "It seems you may have hired us under some misinformation."

"Okay, who're you?" Sanosuke asked, straightening with difficulty. Tae edged around the room putting herself closer to Sanosuke and in touching distance of a wall with a well-used pitchfork propped up against it.

The newcomer stretched his fingers, thorn-like projectiles dancing in a flicker of brief sight between his black claws. "Beshimi. One of the Oniwabanshu."

Sano grunted in recognition. "Great. More bounty hunters. Look, pal, you're poaching if there's a bounty on this idiot. Kenshin and I were here first, and Missy asked us to stay through the storm, so we've got Hospitality here."

Beshimi cocked his head and smiled slightly as he jumped up to balance comfortably on a tall metal jug. "The one with the bounty is the succubus Kaoru Kamiya. Our leader hired us out to the Hiruma brothers in order to rescue one's selkie wife from the succubus," Beshimi explained, pointing in Tae's direction. "However," his attention shifted to the selkie woman. "you have said that _she_ rescued you from _them_."

"No, she didn't," Tae answered, matter-of-factly. "Kaoru didn't rescue me. In fact, she told me straight that she wouldn't rescue me because I didn't need to be rescued. All she did was tell me where to look for my pelt and give me a place to go afterward. I walked out of there on my own, and I wasn't his _wife_ while Kihei had my pelt. I was his slave."

"She ... she's lying!" Gohei sputtered, wiping ineffectually at the blood on his face, smearing it further. "That succubus has her thinking that!"

Beshimi held up a hand. "I have no way of knowing which of you are lying, but someone obviously is. If Miss Tae is telling the truth, and not under thrall, then you have lied to the Okashira." Gohei visibly quailed at the underlying threat in the small man's voice and sharp eyes. Beshimi rocked forward, and dropped off his perch, landing in an easy crouch before straightening and started towards the doors. "Come," he beckoned.

Sano bristled and put out a hand, blocking Tae from moving past him. "Not a chance, shinobi. I and my partner got caught up in this mess, and we don't follow your Okashira."

Beshimi turned and watched Sanosuke steadily for a long moment before flicking a hand, and sending a shower of tiny glittering objects sailing towards the were. Sano dropped with a curse, dragging Tae down with him, and pushing her behind a bale of straw before rolling back to his feet and ducking into one of the stalls. A vitriolic curse ending with a ponderous thud and clatter heralded that one of the things had hit Gohei and that they were drugged. Or poisoned, Sano thought, chancing a quick around the wood of his shelter. Gohei lay face down on the stone and straw, but his back moved rhythmically, and Sano marginally relaxed.

"Not quite what I had in mind," Beshimi said, dropping his hands and moving towards where Tae had fallen. He pushed the bale away and offered a hand to help her up. Sano dropped into a crouch, preparing to lunge at the shinobi, and hesitating as he saw Tae look at Beshimi's hand, frown, and push herself up on her own. "I have no orders to harm you, you know. This was supposed to be a bounty and rescue mission."

"Rescue missions include hurting innocent folk now?" Tae asked archly, pushing past and going to the corner where the dryad crouched, with the young wereswan in her arms, and his unconscious father at their feet. She turned back long enough to look Beshimi over appraisingly. "Don't think you're big enough to carry Mr. Lohengrin, so Sanosuke will have to help us."

"I'll leave him conscious," Beshimi responded. Sano growled under his breath as he stepped into view and folded his arms, annoyed at being drafted as a dogsbody. Beshimi ignored the growl with easy poise. "And donate the use of our current employer's carriage, if your dryad friend can drive in this rain."

"If Muirin can't, I can," the boy said, pulling away from the dryad and stumbling to his feet, and offering Tae a shy but determined smile. She returned the smile, and Sanosuke cleared his throat.

"Look, I'm glad we're all seeing reason here, but shouldn't one of us be headed out to stop your Animate friend from tangling too much with Jou-chan and Kenshin?"

"Hannya will not kill them," Beshimi assured him, dropping from his perch and waving Sano on to the other victims with a hand. "The bounty was to immobilize and detain Miss Kaoru while rescuing Mis Tae. Killing her would be sloppy."

"Look, shinobi, you're good, and I'll bet your partner's even better since he was sent in to take on Jou-chan and you were kept on lookout, but there's not an Animate out there that can take on Kenshin."

Beshimi's lips thinned. "You're underestimating the Oniwabanshu."

Sano raised an eyebrow and pointed a thumb at Gohei. "I told that idiot my name is Sanosuke, but I probably should have said Zanza. Which means your friend's up against a high-level demoness and Battousai. Still think I'm underestimating you? Because I think you just triggered hazard pay."

The roar of a shotgun blast cracked through the through the night, startling everyone, and pulling a few yelps. Sanosuke grabbed a pitchfork from the wall, and tested the sharpness of the tines before tossing it to Tae. She fumbled a bit before latching onto the wooden handle and gripping it between her hands. Sanosuke pointed at Gohei. "If he moves, stick him. We're going to go keep the bloodshed to a minium."

Tae scooped up a length of rope and set the pitchfork aside. Kneeling next to Gohei's prone form, she started looping the rope between his hands and tying it off with rough knots. "Help me move him into a stable, I'm going to get the sheriff," Tae told them. "Someone has to while Muirin and Cygnus get Albanian home."

Sano hesitated for a brief moment before Tae stood, dusting her hands against her damp skirt, then looked at him pointedly. He stooped down to hoist the other man by his armpits and staggered into the nearest stall. A velvety nose poked curiously over the low dividing wall, and Sano patted the horse on the nose before turning back to the others. Tae smiled in thanks, then moved to herd the dryad and wereswans into the carriage.

Sano looked for Beshimi, and found that the small shinobi had vanished, leaving only an open door to mark the direction of his passage. Muttering under his breath, Sano stretched his hands and took off through the door and the night wind slapped him in the face with the scent of mud and wet leaves, and the faintest taint of gunpowder. Listening for more shots, Sano raced towards the doorway leading into the saloon.

&&&&&

"Kenshin," Kaoru said softly, reaching out and wrapping a hand around the base of his wing, pulling him to a halt. "You shouldn't be down here. You're going to get hurt."

"You're _already _hurt, Miss Kaoru," he responded, glancing back for a fraction of a second at the way one of her wings was held protectively close against her back then shifting to survey the damage done to the rest of the room.

A few sparks smoldered on the stone directly in front of the hearth fire. The bounty hunter Hannya had recovered quickly, and was looking to his human employer, who peered carefully from behind a fallen table, hands gripping the edge of the wood in a white-knuckled grip. Kenshin could see tension in the set of the bounty hunter's shoulders, but couldn't tell if it was from annoyance at the human's cowardice, or being faced by an unknown and unfamiliar opponent.

"We were not told she would hire bodyguards," the bounty hunter stated, turning his masked face toward Kenshin. "And I believe I know you by reputation. Perhaps this assignment will be more interesting than expected, Battousai."

Behind him, Kenshin heard the whisper of fabric from Kaoru's steady edging away still, and he could feel her shocked gaze centered on the back of his head, no doubt piecing the rumors that whispered through the Outlands together with the man that stood between her and the other bounty hunter. Kenshin clenched his hand, feeling the bite of deadly claws along his palm, but sorely missing the weapon he'd usually be carrying; the one now lost under a collapsed hillside.

"My partner and I were caught in the storm and stopped here for the night," Kenshin said. "I am not her bodyguard, but I won't allow you to harm Miss Kaoru."

Hannya's eyes narrowed behind his mask. "Either the succubus has you in Thrall, Battousai, or you believe she's innocent."

Kenshin allowed his hair to fall forward, leaving only the barest gleam of gold visible through the dark scarlet. "Devils cannot be placed under Thrall, that they cannot."

He hid a wince as crashes rained down behind him from Kaoru's response to his quiet statement. He knew that if he were to look back, he'd see terror and likely revulsion blanketing her expression. He also hoped that Sano was feeling well enough to walk, as – Rules of Hospitality or not — no one in their right mind would allow one of the Fallen to remain in their home. It was too dangerous to run the risk of discovery and the drawn attention of things better left alone.

"Ha... Hannya!" Kihei's voice shattered the silence. "What are you standing there for?! Destroy that _thing _before any more of them show up!"

Hannya blurred, and Kenshin dashed forward, slashing through the after-image of the doppleganger as it vanished from sight. He twisted, landing in a ready crouch and a shot rang out over their heads. Kihei dropped to the ground and scurried under a table, as Hannya flickered back into view, wariness visible in every tense line of his body and the short puffs of white smoke coming from the edges of his demonic mask.

Kenshin kept his attention trained on Hannya, but caught a glimpse of dark hair and tattered white lace straightening from behind the bar where Kaoru stood, sighting down a long black barrel. "That was a blank," he heard, followed by the ominous clack of a second shot chambering, before she leveled the rifle at her shoulder. "Because you deserve a warning, and I hate putting holes in my woodwork."

Hannya twitched, clearly torn between turning to faced Kenshin again and risking Kaoru's aim with a rifle at close range, or attacking her and leaving Kenshin at his back. Not, Kenshin thought, that it would greatly matter. "You can't kill an Animate with a rifle, Miss Kaoru," Kenshin said, risking a glance towards her.

The rifle remained pointed at the doppleganger with steady accuracy. "Oh, I know it won't kill him," Kaoru agreed, finger slipping over the trigger. "Dopplegangers don't bleed. But they have nerves, and it'll hurt."

Another flicker of movement caught Kenshin's attention, and he saw the human had crept unobtrusively towards the kitchen archway, and was slipping out of the room. Kenshin cursed under his breath and lunged, hoping to reach him before Kaoru shot. He could feel his eyes bleeding to gold even as he saw the human's widen and spin to claw towards the exit, then gasp as a clawed hand appeared and plucked him off the floor like an abandoned rag doll. Kenshin faltered, skidding to clumsy stop in front of the massive dark-furred form that stood in the way.

Sanosuke took a step forward, coming into the light and gave the moaning human a sharp shake before looking up to see his partner looking back at him and Kaoru, who still had her rifle trained on the bounty hunter. He grinned and gave her a jaunty wave. "Nice gun, Jou-chan!"

Kenshin ran a hand over his face, and picked himself up off the floor. "Sano, did you find Miss Tae?"

"And all the others," Sano confirmed with a nod. "Turns out this guy and his thug," he pointed a clawed digit at Kihei's bleeding form, "probably lied to the Oniwabanshu to put a contract on Kaoru."

Kihei quailed, curling himself into a tight of a ball as he could manage while dangling from Sano's clawed grip, and Hannya's sudden attention and density shift seemed to lower the temperature in the room several degrees. Kenshin stepped between the two, breaking Hannya's line of sight. "Perhaps it would be best to put him with his thug."

Kaoru's shook her head and lowered the rifle, but kept a grip on it as she marched around the battle-scarred bar, stumbling a step as her heel caught on her skirt. "Keep him there, Sanosuke. I'll handle it."

"Miss Kaoru, you can't kill him," Kenshin reached out for her as she passed, but she evaded his grasp and paused just out of reach.

She looked at him and her eyes softened, then she curled a hand around his shoulder and pushed past him. "I won't. I'll just do what I should have done in the first place." She stopped in front of the man and his guard-dog. The mottled shadows of her wings settled in a long line of sleek feathers down her back, and her clan markings traced indigo swirls around her throat like tendrils of evening sky. Kenshin turned and followed, stopping right behind her when she stopped. Some part of him enjoyed the quailed wince as they heard the final sentence: "Which is handing you and your brother over to the sheriff."

* * *

**Kat's Notes:** Well, one more chapter, and this supposed one-shot is over. And then it's off to other adventures! Everyone's been supremely nice to put up with my slowness. And just to give you something to look forward to: the next chapter has some of my favorite scenes in it. Including some discussions on why it's not wise to make assumptions about a succubus, even if you're a devil. 

**Creatures and Words of Interest:**

_Animate _- a category of supernatural beings that were previously inanimate objects, but have been reanimated by magic. Homunculi, vampires, doppleganger, and golems belong to this group.

_Demon_ - A general classification for supernatural creatures in this world. Imps, succubi, djinn/djinni, and tengu are all demons.

_Doppleganger - _A creature that can take on the form of another. Part of the demon clans, and particularly suited to hunting succubi and incubi.

_Dryad - _a type of fae whose life is tied to a tree. There are as many types of dryads as there are types of trees.

_Selkie -_ A type of shape-shifting fae that can take the form of a seal. Females can shed their skin and come on land appearing human. Male selkie can cause storms. If a man finds the skin and hides it, he can force the selkie into becoming his wife. She won't be able to return to the water without her skin. Typically, selkies are found in the ocean or sea, where you'd find regular seals. However, there are fresh water seals, and therefore, there are fresh water selkies too.

_Thrall:_ An enchantment that places another under magical enslavement. Demonic creatures are often good at it.

_Werekin -_ A human that can change into an animal. They are not true shapeshifters, because they can only shift to and from their single animal form, but the truly skilled ones can control the change and change only by degrees. Werewolves tend to be the most structured and, hence, the most well known by human legends.


	5. Dangerous Assumptions

**Disclaimer: **It's over in Chapter 1. You probably clicked on it before you got to this point.**  
**

**Dedication: **This chapter actually has a dedication. To Juno.

* * *

.: **Chapter 5** :.  
.: **Dangerous Assumptions **:.

An out-of-place chink and crackling hiss of breaking logs sounded from the main room's fireplace, followed by an ear-shattering crack, as though a lightning bolt from the dwindling storm had detonated inside the room. The concussion threw Kaoru off her feet, and air ripped past, flinging debris that clawed at her hair and clothes. A breathless instant later, leathery darkness draped itself over her, and a lean form pressed her further into the floor as she felt arms wrapping around her waist. Kaoru managed a shaky breath, and inhaled an ashy scent touched by brimstone. A shattering crash above them heralded a lukewarm wave of liquor that splashed across them and the entire room, sliding off Kenshin wings and soaking into hers while coating everything with a layer of broken glass.

Several moments of silence followed the mayhem before Kenshin's grip on her eased, and the both shifted to look around at the new devastation. Splintered remains of chairs and tables littered the room. She stood carefully, keeping her wings as still as possible so the broken bits of glass glittering along the feathers would fall without working themselves towards her skin or get caught in the tines. Kenshin was sporting a scattered tracery of cuts from flying debris, most of which had already stopped bleeding. Sano looked around the wall, leaning in from where he'd taken shelter in the kitchen, and started cursing.

"Damn shinobi," he snarled. "Can't ever just bust a place up. Always have to get in an explosion. You two okay?"

Kaoru stared at him for a few seconds before she started to laugh. Kenshin gave her an odd look as he shifted himself off her and climbed to his feet. "Fine, Sano. Nothing that won't heal." He reached down, and wrapped taloned fingers around Kaoru's hands and pulled her upright. "Miss Kaoru?"

"Other than my home becoming a battlefield?" Kaoru asked dryly, as she gingerly spread first her right, then her left wing, wincing a bit as the abused muscled protested at being stretched. Glittery bits of glass fell along with a maelstrom of dark-banded feathers as she shook her wings lightly. Pale skin stretched over slender bones showed for an instant before the cloaking feathers reappeared. "I should have made sure the Hirumas left town."

"Not going to be a problem anymore, Missy," Sano said, drawing their attention to where he crouched beside Kihei, who lay sprawled amidst the generalized ruin of the room. Sano pulled his fingers from the man's throat and stood, dusting his hands across his trousers. "Someone better go check on the one we left in your carriage house, but he's probably already dead too. Looks like the Oniwabanshu don't take well to being lied to."

"What happened?" Kaoru gasped, crunching across the floor, and confirming that Kihei Hiruma was no longer among the living. Her hand shook slightly, just once, before her fingers curled into a fist and her other hand wrapped around to steady it further.

"One of the shinobi was carrying poison darts," Sano told her. "I figured they were just meant to knock someone out, but it looks like they had some for tying up loose ends."

"Something strong enough to knock one of us out could be strong enough to kill a human, Sano," Kenshin said from where he leaned against the bar. The undercurrent of exhaustion caught Kaoru's attention, and she refocused on him with a frown.

"You weren't really up to picking a fight with a bounty hunter tonight, Kenshin. Sano, can help you back upstairs while I go get the sheriff."

"You two are a pair, you know that?" Sano growled, rolling his eyes. "I'm always hauling _his_ butt out of trouble." Sano stabbed a finger towards Kenshin, and Kenshin's eyes crossed to look at it. "And you'd think a cute little succubus like you, Missy, would know about the better part of valor. You're _both _going upstairs before you fall over." Sano told her, snagging her wrist as he walked by and dragging her over to Kenshin so he could grab the devil as well. Double protests and fidgeting struggles met his manhandling, but no defensive magic was summoned and Sano decided that proved his point: both of them were drained to the dregs, and it didn't look like Missy had any more sense of when to slow down than Kenshin did.

From long experience, Sano knew that Kenshin would keep going and pushing himself, damn any injury he might have gotten or the consequences, until he could physically go no further if he got it into his fool head that something needed protecting. It was one of the reasons they'd been partnered, even. Sanosuke had the sense for when to be strategically lazy.

He deposited both Kenshin and Kaoru at the foot of the stairs, and gave them a final once over. Kaoru blinked and flushed, having the grace to look embarrassed as she glanced towards Kenshin, who wiped away a trickle of blood from his forehead and just smiled. Sanosuke didn't return the sentiment. "Okay, Missy, which way does that doctor of yours live?"

&&&&&&&&&&&

"My goodness, Kaoru, do you intend to let an old man get any rest this night?" Genzai greeted, his usually cheerful demeanor frayed around the edges from the hour and the sudden appearance of a harried werekin on his doorstep demanding he return to the saloon. The bottom of a worn house coat thrown over a plain nightshirt peeked from beneath Genzai's overcoat.

Kaoru folded her hands in her lap, and bowed her head in apology. "It was Sano's idea to bring you back. I think he's worried about Kenshin trying to rescue me when he couldn't even hold a glamour. Are they all right?"

Genzai snorted. "One waved me off, and since he's been running around in the drizzling wet, I decided to take him at his word. The other refuses to let me see how much worse tonight's adventures have made his earlier injuries until I've seen to you."

Kaoru laughed until her breath caught with a pained hitch, and she pressed a hand to her side. Long fingers, wrinkled with age but still strong and sure pulled her hand away from her side, and probed the injury. "Cracked ribs, but not broken," Genzai said after a moment. "I can bind them up for you, and leave you something for the pain if you need it. Still, I'm no Healer, Kaoru, so you'll need to be careful until these heal up on their own." He shifted his attention to her wings, pushing aside the feathers to reveal the extent of the bruising that spread across Kaoru's back. "Add no flying or shape-shifting to that." Kaoru craned her neck so she could look at him over her shoulder, and he returned her look with a firm one of his own. "Three days, Kaoru. No adventures, no daring rescues."

"You make it sound like it's intentional," she said with a chuckle as Genzai's smoothed one of his salves over the worst of the bruising. It burned with an icy chill as it sank into abused skin and muscles, and Kaoru hissed.

Genzai grunted, as he wiped his hands clean and placed a jar of salve back into his medicine bag. "You'll do what you will, Kaoru, no doubt there, but devils have a reputation for bringing trouble. Something's chasing those young men."

"I know. And the last thing we need around here is more trouble, but …" Kaoru drew one of her feet up on the stool and wrapped her arms around her leg, "it's probably not Sano that's being chased, it's Kenshin. I know you're worried I'm going to finally acquire a stray that bites, but they didn't have to help Tae and me, and I don't think they have anywhere else to go." She uncurled herself and dropped to her feet. "Or maybe I'm just curious. Devils are legendary as it is, but I've never heard of one with a soul."

Genzai shook his head and opened her door to let himself out. "A sympathetic succubus, and a devil with a soul. Only you, Kamiya Kaoru, would even consider taking a creature like that into your home."

"No," she corrected, wearing a smile tinted with memories. "Dad would have."

&&&&&&&&&&&

Genzai shut the door behind him as he left, and Kaoru slid the tattered remains of her dress off her body. She scooped the bundle of yellow linen and formerly-white lace into her hands and sighed. Splotches from splattered liquor and tiny rips from both manhandling and flying glass savaged the fabric, leaving a sad-looking thing dangling from the tips of her claws. Kaoru finally folded the dress and dropped it into her empty mending basket. Tomorrow she'd see if it could be salvaged.

She pulled an indigo-edged robe from her clothes chest and drew it up over her shoulders, until the low cut of the back brushed the bottom of her pinions, and she could fasten the front clasp and wrap a sash around her waist to give it better form. She could see the mottling of widespread bruising spreading over her uncovered skin and feel it every time her arm, or even her fingers, moved. It was uncomfortable, but she'd heal. She coaxed a tendril of magic out, though, just enough to smooth away the markings at her throat while leaving the rest of her inhumanity on display.

Kaoru finished knotting the sash around her robe as she walked to the shuttered doors that opened onto a tiny balcony beneath the top gables of the building. She pushed the doors open, and leaned out into the rain-washed night. The moon – several days yet from being full - was setting, but visible through the thinning clouds.

It wasn't a good night for flying; the heavy wetness in the air would cling to her wings, and soak them through. Nights like this, she would stay near the fire with mending or a book, trusting the salamanders to catch stray sparks before they could catch on fabric or feathers.

The road spread before her, winding as a bit of paler darkness along the front of the saloon, illuminated by the moon and the dimmed lights shining from the windows. Tae had elected to stay for the night, probably for both security and on Genzai's orders in an attempt to keep the injured from getting into further mischief. Kaoru had picked up on his irritation with her, and no doubt Kenshin was receiving a lecture about bed rest.

How fast did devils heal? She wondered, leaning her head against the back of her hand. The legends her father had told her ran through her mind, overlaid with her old friend's concern, and the ragged exhaustion Kenshin had been fighting when he stood between her and the doppelganger.

He hadn't had to do that. By all rights he _shouldn't_ have done that. It didn't exactly match up with beings so evil that one of their own had betrayed the others, and sealed them in the underworld. A large part of her wondered how much of those old stories were true, and how much was made up. She'd always assumed it was all made up: an attempt to give an equivalent boogeyman to people who could _literally_ be boogeymen. Her father had told her the legends over campfires, and used them to keep a curious and winged child from straying too far into the dark Outland nights.

Now she had one of those legends made flesh and being tended by her family doctor, and a good-sized part of her wanted to believe she'd either misheard Kenshin, or that he'd been lying when he said "devil". Another part of her was being logical about the whole thing and pointing imperiously at his resistance to her magic, and his appearance after losing his glamour. Despite human belief, there weren't many demonic species that sported horns, and all of them felt like shadow.

Kenshin didn't. He resonated against her magic with something she hadn't felt before; not the living shadow of a Demon, or the ancient secrets of the Underhill she always felt around the Fae, or the wildness of the werekin, or the twilight spells of the humans whose souls touched magic, or even the echoed abilities of the Animates. He didn't even feel like the dragons with their dangerous mixture of elements and light. She didn't know what he was, and "devil" was the final reasonable answer, even if it was … improbable.

Kaoru shook her head and pushed away from the window. It didn't matter. She herself wasn't in any position to judge someone by the reputation of their race. All that mattered was that they needed help, and it was a start on repaying them for their help that night.

&&&&&&&&&&&

"You, look like someone who's thinking himself into something he shouldn't be." Kenshin heard a moment after he left his room. He turned and found Kaoru stepping out of the doorway that stood at the end of the hall. A riot of mottled bruises spread across the bare skin not covered by her robe or beneath the cloak of dark feathers, and she looked tired but her smile held amusement.

"Your wings are still out," he noted, wondering if this was normal for her, or if she kept them hidden like most succubi not amongst their own kind, or poised to strike.

She glanced over her shoulder at them, and shrugged the uninjured side. "I'm under strict orders to leave them alone until they heal. It's probably just as well, since it will take time for any new stock to arrive for the bar, and they're a bloody nuisance in tight spaces. What are you doing out of bed, Kenshin?"

"I could ask you the same thing, Miss Kaoru."

"You could," she smiled cheerfully, "or you could just answer my question." When he didn't answer she continued. "Because if you were thinking I'm going to toss you out anyway, and you might as well grab Sanosuke and break for it now, then I suggest you rethink that."

"Oro?" Kenshin blinked, suddenly deflating into wide eyes and harmlessness belied only by the gleam of candlelight on leathery wings and polished horns. "I wasn't … why do you say that, Miss Kaoru?" Kaoru glanced past him to darkness still clouding the windows at the other end of the hall and frowned. Then she waited, her entire posture declaring that she knew there was something important he was not telling her, and she expected him to impart it. The silent contest of wills continued until Kenshin finally shook his head. "Sanosuke and I _should_ leave before even more trouble finds your home."

"Trouble and I are old acquaintances," Kaoru answered before tilting her head to one side in confusion as his face darkened. "And Kenshin, none of tonight was your fault. _I'm _the one that helped Tae and left loose ends behind me. That's why the Hirumas' showed up tonight. I didn't turn them in because proving magical enslavement is difficult. I think Saitou would have accepted anything I came up with, though, and maybe I_ should_ have come up with something." Kaoru took a breath and shook herself out of her speculations. "I wanted to thank you. Everything would have been much worse if you and Sanosuke hadn't helped us."

Kenshin was quiet for a moment before he spoke again. "Things will become worse than two scheming humans if we stay. The storm has lifted, so your obligation is over." Kenshin turned, speaking over his shoulder as he moved towards the stairs. "Sano should be downstairs with your sheriff. I'll just collect him and we'll be on our way. You cannot shelter us in your home."

Clawed fingers tangled in red hair, and reeled him back. Kenshin yelped and grabbed at his head.

"That would be up to me, now wouldn't it?" Her voice was light, but laced with a dangerous tone as he found himself being dragged backward through an open door. "I haven't asked you to leave, and you haven't slept since before I met you, unless you're counting the time you've spent unconscious. You should stay at least until you're feeling well enough to travel." The fingers tangled in his hair abruptly loosened and slipped free as soon as his legs collided with a bed. The sudden release threw him off balance enough that he sat, and found himself looking up at Kaoru, who stood near him with one hand on her hip and a few strands of his hair caught in her fingers. "Lie down and sleep the rest of the night," she said. "You owe Sanosuke at least that before forcing him back onto the road."

Kenshin's shoulders slumped and he seemed exasperated as he looked away. "I am a devil, Miss Kaoru. We are not like your kind, who only prey on the emotions of others. My race destroyed this world once."

"So that really happened?" she asked, curious. At Kenshin's puzzled look she shook her head. "I'm not asking a devil to stay, I'm asking Himura Kenshin. And if he happens to be a devil …well, people's pasts are their own and everyone has secrets. I don't mind those secrets, and I don't care what you are, Kenshin."

Kenshin sighed and allowed his head to drop forward. She could feel his emotions spinning with confusion, and surprise, a bit of wariness, and (so faint it had to be surfacing from the subconscious) a tendril of resigned aversion as he finally answered, "Succubi never do."

Kenshin kept his eyes lowered while his ears tracked the whisper of fabric as Kaoru moved closer. "When a man shows up looking like you and your partner did earlier tonight, he doesn't _have_ anywhere else to go," Kaoru told him flatly, and the chill in her voice caused him to look up into eyes that glittered with a mesmerizing sort of heat. "That's why you're both welcome to stay, but we do have to get one thing clear." Kenshin hissed involuntarily as her hand descended on his chest, the edges of her blunted claws pressing into the skin above the rough warmth of her palms as she pressed him backward. His wings flared out of the way as his back rasped against the bedclothes beneath him. She settled on the mattress beside him and leaned across his body, with one hand resting on the mattress alongside his hip. She shifted forward, close enough for him to see the flecks of indigo in her blue eyes, as her breath ghosted across his lips and the caress of wild magic wrapped around him. "I'm not _that _kind of succubus."

Kenshin's eyes widened, the light purple caught more light from the shadowy glow of the candles, casting flecks of amber through them. A hint of fang flashed over her lip before Kaoru straightened and pulled away. The air around him cooled, chill with the sudden absence of her warmth, and Kenshin unclenched his fingers from where they'd twisted into his bedding.

He watched as Kaoru stood and crossed the room and opened the door, revealing a startled-looking Sano with a hand raised to knock. Sanosuke stepped aside so Kaoru could pass, answering her 'good night' with a mumble of his own. He waited until she disappeared down the hall before arching an eyebrow in Kenshin's direction. "How many times has that succubus been in your room tonight now?"

"Sano …" Kenshin dropped a hand over his eyes. "We are her guests. You should be polite, that you should."

"Who's being impolite?" Sanosuke answered with a snort and steeped fully into the room, leaving the door ajar behind him. "Missy's a succubus, and she's been in here a lot since you met her; I just wanted a count."

Kenshin levered himself up and rolled off the bed. Sano's grin didn't falter as his partner took several steps away from the bed he'd just been sprawled on and shifted to face him. "Well, Sano?"

"Well, their sheriff wasn't too thrilled being dragged out here in the middle of the night?" Sano offered. "Seriously, this place lives up to its reputation: it's a bunch of freaks and weirdoes. I've never seen a human lecture a werewolf like that doctor did the sheriff. He told him both you and the Missy were off limits until tomorrow, by the way, so you'll have until then, unless you've decided to keep going with the natural look."

Kenshin's wings curled a bit over her shoulders as he shook his head. "Miss Kaoru wasn't upset by my nature. I won't chance that her opinion is typical, even for Hill Hollow."

"Genzai and Tae know about it too," Sanosuke pointed out. "And they haven't exactly panicked. 'Course, that could be Kaoru's doing."

Kenshin shook his head. "Sano, she used a rifle instead of putting the human in Thrall and putting him up as a shield against that doppelganger. How much magic have you actually noticed her doing tonight?"

Sano thought for a moment before answering. "You're right. Every succubus or incubus we've ever run across has been _bleeding_ magic into everything around them to keep control. It's damn hard to keep your head around one normally, but Missy hasn't tried anything. Unless …" Sano looked over at his partner and cocked a questioning eyebrow. "You never did answer my question, Kenshin."

"Miss Kaoru 's visits were only making sure we were well, and extending an invitation to stay if we wished," Kenshin said, herding his companion to the door. "But you are mistaking can't with won't, that you are."

"Eh?" Sano looked at his partner, looking confused as he crossed the threshold. "What do you mean by that?"

Kenshin's glare broke, overtaken by a suspiciously cheerful smile as he shook his head. "Good night, Sano."

&&&&&&&

The next morning, or mid-morning edging on towards afternoon if she were being perfectly honest, Kaoru pushed the door of Kenshin's room open and found the bedding neatly tucked around the mattress, and no devil in sight. Disappointed, she shook her head in resignation as she pushed away from the empty room.

"Tae!" she called, clattering down the stairs and bursting into the kitchen. "When did ..."

"Good morning, Miss Kaoru!" Kenshin said, standing in the doorway to the laundry room with a full basket in his arms. His cheerful smile looked at odds with the exhausted bounty hunter she'd half-carried up the stairs the night before, and Kaoru blinked speechlessly at the sight. With no doctor's orders to stop him, his horns and wings were now firmly hidden again, and it looked like Tae had raided Kaoru's trail clothes while the succubus herself slept. The basket in Kenshin's arms held a fluffy array of cloth and trailing sleeves.

"You're ... doing the laundry?" she hazarded, then a more astonishing fact dawned on her. "You're allowed in the kitchen?"

"He is, you still aren't," Tae informed her cheerfully, coming up behind Kaoru and tugging on one of her wings. Kaoru eeped and flicked her wing out of the selkie woman's light grasp. "Good morning, Kaoru. Now shoo, both of you. I've got people to feed that don't subsist on air."

"But …" Kaoru started, allowing herself to be ushered out of the room by Kenshin and his basket of clothing. "Wait … you're staying?"

Kenshin answered her with a nod as they emerged into the late morning sunlight. "For now. But bounty hunters attract trouble, Miss Kaoru, and our lifestyle usually means we don't stay in one place for long."

"They'll stay long enough to replace their clothes and equipment, I hope," Kaoru said. "And Hill Hollow's not the worst base for bounty hunting in the Outlands. Just don't let any of your catches go running into the uninhabited part of town."

"Oro?"

"Oh, I'm sure you'll find out soon enough," she answered, taking the laundry basket from him and upending it into a foamy tub of water. "Don't go into the center of town."

.: **Fin** :.

* * *

**Kat's Notes:** And we are done, folks! EmeraldDragon has been the amazing and wonderful beta for this fic. LadyChi has been the cheerleader, especially when I wanted to just punt the computer out the window. And Enigma has been the silent cheerleader. I've also had a bunch of really wonderful reviewers and lurking readers (you know who you are. I still like you.) that were always so amazingly nice about the whole thing, even if this was weird. And now I'm going to ramble about stuff, and answer some questions that crop up frequently, so you can skip this part if you want to. 

I have to admit that when my muses took a story prompt and then brought me the setting for this fic, I looked at them like they were crazy, and where had an idea like that even come from? The legends of the old west? And just for the heck of it, Kaoru would be a succubus, since that's about the farthest thing I could think of from her actual personality. Then the idea wouldn't go away, and I started writing it in an old notebook by my bed. The results were interesting, so I decided to write it out, and then just not post it. Then I posted it to my Livejournal, got embarrassed, and took it down less than a day later. By then Enigma came and asked "Where did it go? I liked it!" and Chi was telling me to just post it, and see what kind of a reaction I got. I was responding with "Chi, it's set in the Old West, and there are ... mythical critter things running all through it! No one writes Kenshin in the Old West! It's probably against some sort of rule." No one was more surprised than I was when the feedback I started getting was _positive_. (No one is a harsher critic of my stories than I am.)

I still think Kaoru was out of character, especially when she seduces Kenshin. I've had several people remark that she's not as girlishly naive as the manga/anime version of Kaoru. This is completely true. The Kaoru of Hill Hollow is older than her Tokyo counterpart. She has lived on her own for more than two years, and she's done it on the frontier of this world. She's also a succubus. How she choses to live is not typical for a succubus, but she still is one. I'm hoping the result is something like what manga Kaoru would have become if she'd had a few more years handling her own problems, determined to follow the teachings of her father, before Kenshin showed up to protect her.

Concerning the devils. It's a race, not an individual. Did they really destroy the world like Kenshin said? Yes. They were nasty pieces of work, but it was a very long time ago and they've been sealed since then. Well, most of them. The race as a whole has become somewhat mythical even to the other mythical creatures. Who sealed them? Well, it wasn't Kenshin, but I'll leave you to wonder as to who did. Hopefully, it won't be hard to figure out. I think it's kind of obvious.

Now for the question I'm sure will come up at some point: will I continue this story? Probably. This is a fun sandbox to build castles in. I'm deciding which direction I want to go next. Kenshin's past, what happened to land him and Sano a bloodied mess in Hill Hollow, the direct sequel to Sympathy, or some of the things happening later on. We'll see.

Right now, it's back to Blood Ties, and off to finish up the outline for a story called "The Moriarty Gambit" for NaNoWriMo. If you want to join me, then brush up on who Edogawa Conan and Kuroba Kaito are. Kaito is awesome, so you should meet him in any case.


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